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choke

[chohk]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used with object)

to stop the breath of by squeezing or obstructing the windpipe; strangle; stifle.

to stop by or as if by strangling or stifling: The sudden wind choked his words.

to stop by filling; obstruct; clog: Grease choked the drain.

to suppress (a feeling, emotion, etc.) (often followed by back or down): I managed to choke back my tears.

to fill chock-full: The storeroom was choked with furniture.

EXPAND

to seize (a log, felled tree, etc.) with a chain, cable, or the like, so as to facilitate removal.

to enrich the fuel mixture of (an internal-combustion engine) by diminishing the air supply to the carburetor.

Sports. to grip (a bat, racket, or the like) farther than usual from the end of the handle; shorten one's grip on (often followed by up).

COLLAPSE

verb (used without object)

to suffer from or as from strangling or suffocating: He choked on a piece of food.

10.

to become obstructed, clogged, or otherwise stopped: The words choked in her throat.

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Choke is one of our favorite verbs.

So is kibitz. Does it mean:

chat, to converse

to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.

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noun

11.

the act or sound of choking.

12.

a mechanism by which the air supply to the carburetor of an internal-combustion engine can be diminished or stopped.

13.

Machinery. any mechanism that, by blocking a passage, regulates the flow of air, gas, etc.

14.

Electricity. choke coil.

15.

a narrowed part, as in a chokebore.

EXPAND

16.

the bristly upper portion of the receptacle of the artichoke.

COLLAPSE

Verb phrases

17.

choke off, to stop or obstruct by or as by choking: to choke off a nation's fuel supply.

18.

choke up,

to become or cause to become speechless, as from the effect of emotion or stress: She choked up over the sadness of the tale.

to become too tense or nervous to perform well: Our team began to choke up in the last inning.

Origin:
1150–1200; Middle English choken, cheken, variant of achoken, acheken, Old English ācēocian to suffocate; akin to Old Norse kōk gullet

Related forms

choke·a·ble, adjective

in·ter·choke, verb (used with object), -choked, -chok·ing.

un·choke·a·ble, adjective

un·choked, adjective

Synonyms
3. block, dam, plug.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To choke

Example Sentences

Chen, the authorities are mobilizing to choke a resurgence of activism supporting him.

Wiggle sticks or arm movement would completely make me choke.

If banks choose to sacrifice foreign lending to concentrate on business at home, it could choke the supply of credit.

EXPAND

Chen, the authorities are mobilizing to choke a resurgence of activism supporting him.

Wiggle sticks or arm movement would completely make me choke.

If banks choose to sacrifice foreign lending to concentrate on business at home, it could choke the supply of credit.

I've seen people that have a choke chain on the wrong side or much too small etc.

As you know, one never gives chicken bones to a dog because they splinter and will choke the animal.

It won't choke other crops, but it will definitely be a presence.

Small, almost imperceptible changes in the terrain were forcing the battalion's vehicles into natural choke points.

Choke is not a pretty word in the idiom of professional sports.

Finally, he starts to choke up, and gestures to the camera to stop shooting.

When illegal ones are planned, police detain opposition leaders, choke off roads and turn cars away from rallying points.

The condition is not uncommon in the breed and using a choke collar is a no no.

But more often a gull will choke the scraps down mid-flight.

They could also pose a choking risk to children and the choke prone.

People choke all the time, but they're not necessarily really choking.

It will choke off exports, on which the economy continues to depend heavily.

Even if the military only dredges part of it, or a nearby reef, the silt will settle on the coral and choke out sunlight.

At favored frequencies, licensed users and regulations choke off the electromagnetic spectrum.

But that creates choke points while running up fuel bills.

There's no slow peer connection to choke your downloads.

Some of the anglophone speakers who tried it sounded as though they were about to choke.

Because of those icons, don't give it to any child under three years unless you're happy to see them choke.

If lower yields stimulate the economy, higher yields will choke the economy.

And the occasional network lag made my mail program choke.

Austerity, a second and unappetising choice, can easily choke recovery.

All this will allow excellence to flourish but choke those in the middle.

Second best is to attack and choke off enemy formations.

But the solution is to improve the indigenous workforce's skills, not to choke the arrival of those who already have them.

For those governments that lose the race the resulting fiscal tightening could choke off the nascent recovery.

If there is no long-term trade-off, low inflation does not permanently choke growth.

Although some supply chains have choke points, that is a weak general argument for sectoral aid.

Another reason for caution is that firms on a cash crusade can all too easily choke off investment in promising new products.

How not to choke when riding through ice-cold water.

But officials there are increasingly worried that a rising yen will choke it off.

The deficit also threatens to choke private investment by pushing up the cost of credit when demand for it surges.

If business leaders are universally seen as immoral and grasping, cynicism and mistrust will flourish and choke enterprise.

Community colleges, now flooded with students, are a choke point in the higher-education system.

Air quality problems choke off views, poison plants, and even foul water.

One can only swallow her own tongue for so long before she begins to choke on it.

So this reader is not sorry to say toug cookie if you buy rhino horn and choke and ur eyes pop out from ingestion of poison.

When it creeps into forests, it forms dense carpets that can choke out native tree seedlings.

Suttles noted that the choke and kill lines could erode, as they were not designed for continuous flow.

One short sharp yank on the choke chain and a firm hiss gets my dogs attention everytime.

The lawyers will of course try to choke the process if allowed.

Last month, his wife told police he tried to choke her.

When it rains, a mudslide can choke up a river and kill endangered salmon.

The apparent weapon was sarin gas, a highly toxic nerve agent that causes victims to choke to death.

They often escape criminal charges and, perhaps emboldened by their impunity, choke their victims again.

They try to nudge them up gently so as not to choke off demand.

Traffic fatalities are on the rise, and air pollution threatens to choke remaining pockets of green space.

Lifted by a sudden wind, clouds of dust and grit choke the throat, blear eyes to a bloodshot red and cake the.

The good news is that many companies are now trying to identify the choke points and weak links in their supply chains.

The slideshow module can now pre-render all images before starting a show, meaning it won't choke midway through.

Flo apparently shares the companies' concern that price controls could choke off the revenue needed for pharmaceutical research.

And if you dont want to choke on poisonous gas and horribly paying horribly high external cost, there is little choice left.

Because a button is used in this game, be sure that all the kids playing are old enough so as to not choke on the button.

But it was merely a last breath of air before an unrelenting choke hold of war and violence.

Otherwise, older, slower machines will choke on your animation.

But they also choke wildlife, create litter and overload dumps for generations to come.

Once science's main conduit, the paper has become its choke point.

The central bank steadied the real and raised interest rates to choke inflation.

It won't completely choke itself off, but other things are much more important.

The new bill aims to choke off the payment systems, although in many respects it is largely symbolic.

Interesting is to choke smaller economies and rip them because they are fragile.

The current choke point in the development of space is the high cost to and from orbit.

The economy, deprived of cheap money, has begun to choke.

And it is a choke point that is strategically important to energy, commerce and military.

Sorry, but you don't choke off federal spending in the midst of a major recession.

The fear is often expressed that this will choke off the bank lending to business.

To choke off supplies, you need to find a way to eliminate demands.

The world financial market will immediately choke and suffer a bigger loss than last financial crisis.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

choke (tʃəʊk)

—vb
1.	(tr) to hinder or stop the breathing of (a person or animal), esp by constricting the windpipe or by asphyxiation
2.	(intr) to have trouble or fail in breathing, swallowing, or speaking
3.	(tr) to block or clog up (a passage, pipe, street, etc)
4.	(tr) to retard the growth or action of: the weeds are choking my plants
5.	(tr) to suppress (emotion): she choked her anger
6.	slang (intr) to die
7.	(tr) to enrich the petrol-air mixture by reducing the air supply to (a carburettor, petrol engine, etc)
8.	(intr) (esp in sport) to be seized with tension and fail to perform well

—n
9.	the act or sound of choking
10.	a device in the carburettor of a petrol engine that enriches the petrol-air mixture by reducing the air supply
11.	any constriction or mechanism for reducing the flow of a fluid in a pipe, tube, etc
12.	electronics Also called: choke coil an inductor having a relatively high impedance, used to prevent the passage of high frequencies or to smooth the output of a rectifier
13.	the inedible centre of the head of an artichoke

[Old English ācēocian, of Germanic origin; related to cheek]

'chokeable

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

choke

c.1200, aphetic of acheken, from O.E. aceocian "to choke" (with intensive a-), probably from base of ceoke "jaw, cheek." Meaning "valve which controls air to a carburetor" first recorded 1926. Choke-cherry (1785) so called for its astringent qualities. Choker "large neckerchief" is from 1848.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

choke (chōk)
v. choked, chok·ing, chokes

To interfere with the respiration of by compression or obstruction of the larynx or trachea.
To have difficulty in breathing, swallowing, or speaking.

Slang Dictionary

choke definition

in.
[for a computer] to fail to take in information being fed to it. (Computers.) : If you don't have your modem and your software set the same way as the host, your machine will choke.
in.
to panic before or during a test. (From choke up.) : She always chokes during a test.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source

FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

choke definition

jargon
To fail to process input or, more generally, to fail at any endeavor.
E.g. "NULs make System V's "lpr(1)" choke." See barf, gag.
[Jargon File]
(2006-09-20)

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Matching Quote

"How damned ridiculous it all is! The long generations toiling—skimping, lashing themselves screwing higher and higher the tension of their minds, polishing brighter and brighter the mirror of intelligence to end in this—My God what a time—All the cant and hypocrisy, all the damnable survivals, all the vestiges of old truths now putrid and false infect the air, choke you worse than German gas—The ministers from their damn smug pulpits, the business men—the heroics about war—my country right or wrong—oh infinities of them! Oh the tragic farce of the world."

-John Dos Passos

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